Nearly 120 jobs to be lost as Carter Holt Harvey closes site in Tokoroa

Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Carter Holt Harvey is moving ahead with plans to close its plywood manufacturing plant in Tokoroa.

The company reportedly delivered the news to workers on Tuesday afternoon that the plant was expected to be shut down in November.

A union delegate told RNZ that 119 jobs would be lost in the process, with only a handful of workers kept to process imported timber.

The proposal to close the plant, announced earlier this month, followed news earlier this year that the Kinleith pulp and paper mill in Tokoroa was closing its paper-making operation, with about 150 jobs lost.

E tū delegate Andrew Dobbs, who has worked at Carter Holt Harvey in Tokoroa for 24 years, said earlier that staff were devastated.

“It’s just really sad. We knew things were tough, but I didn’t expect them to stop manufacturing altogether. You’d say people are feeling sad and depressed – it’s not quite a closure, but there will be so few people left there, making nothing, just reprocessing imports to send to market.

“Basically, imported product is just too cheap for us to compete with, that’s the guts of it. Personally I don’t want to move out of town, but that might be the only choice we’ve got.

“You already know that the pulp and paper mill has cut jobs, they’ve either moved out or are looking for jobs. Now there’s going to be a whole lot more people looking for jobs locally, but there aren’t that many jobs at present, not for that many people.”

The E Tū union spokesperson for the site, Red Middlemiss, told the Waikato Times at the time of the proposal that the news came as a shock to staff and union members.

Middlemiss said Carter Holt Harvey has already been importing plywood from Australia and a number of other countries, “and has found out that they can import it cheaper than they can make it here”.